Well, my problem was that I had this bunch of Knights running around that had just saved Cyrodiil from Mehrunes Dagon...And basically in 200 years they didn't exist...And so if they did exist, how would any of the invasion stuff happen? Because my Knights wouldn't let it happen...And as one of the in-game Knights is Altmer, he could conceivably still be alive 200 years later...Oh, and Brellin the Bosmer...Also could be alive...

You see what I'm getting at?...

Absolutely I do. I haven't had a character who's had any attachment to the KotN of Cyrodiil's past, yet, but it's possible it could happen at some point....If it does happen, I'll be able to work this glaring hole into my roleplay ("where are all the tales of this group of knights? Certainly not in the books" she pondered), but it's still a glaring plot hole. .

"Every human spends a night or two on the dark side and regrets it. But what if you only exist on the dark side? We just want the same things that you do: a chance at life, at love. And so we try and sometimes fail. But when you're something other, a monster, the consequences are worse. Much worse. You wake up from your nightmares. We don't."

I see. I'm not angry at Bethesda about this. It's the story. It's what happens, plenty of horrible things have happened on Earth, too. It just bummed me out last night as I was reading it.

QUOTE

Espescially as (from a personal point of view) the KOTN were just ignored and the only book in Skryim about them says nothing about what supposedly happened to them...

This is just weird, though. I've heard about this, that KotN aren't mentioned in Sky's books. That seems like a huge oversight..

yes but the horrible things on earth tend to make the human race stronger as a whole , i think that its same in tamriel , yes we can have lambs and bunnies and la la la laa la but at the same time people want hard violence , they want death , they want DE-STRUCT-TION

skyirm was a lot more darker than oblivion or morrowind , playing skyirm you feel like your at a real crisis point in tamriels history . the biggest land war ever fought has ended in stalmate and eveybody know another huge war is coming round the corner - does this sound like anytime we have i nhuman history ? .....

for me its like the 1930's , after WW1 a lot of countries were angry at the treaty of V because they thought it was unfair ,

treaty of versailles - the white gold - congordant ( both are very similar by the way they caused long lasting resentment )

some want peace , actually lots of people in skyirm want peace , the whole of the country is in brutal civil war , people are preeaching from the rooftops , swarms of vampires ( we do at least dont have to contend with flying dragons and vampires) are killing people on the streets, dragons are roasting people from the air . yeah its not a great time to be living .

i think that we are right on the cusp on the second great war , the "war - to - end - all -wars" , by the nine elisi will be saying " we will fight them on the mountains" soon

but i think what they have done is very clever , the lore is pretty intense , i think its going to just make the TES series stronger.

Good lord. Thanks for bouncing this topic up, flowerboom. Sheesh, I was on fire a year ago or something!

I think I’m still on fire about it!

The lore is the single thing that I love most about this series. To me the history of Tamriel is one of the most detailed and fleshed-out backstories of any continuing series now running... in any genre or medium.

The one thing that we know, given what we have seen, is that Tamriel’s history has always been one of violent dispute and upheaval. No matter what era you look at the single constant is cataclysmic change. You have the Night of Tears and the Alessian Rebellion. You have the Battle of Red Mountain which results in the sudden disappearance of the dwarves and the spontaneous ‘ashification’ of the Chimer. You have a Thrassian plague and a Knahaten flu that decimate entire populations. Akaviri invasions occur at the same time as sieges of Orsinium. The giant Numidium destroys so much of Nirn that the survivors bend the knee to a half-breed Atmoran general. The Camoran Usurper uses armies of the undead to terrorize the entire continent. Dagoth Ur rises in the east... and an Oblivion Crisis deposits armies of daedra on the fields of Tamriel.

Mixed in with all of that you have the wars: The War of Succession, The Dragon War, The War of the First Council, The War of Righteousness, The Four-Score War, The War of the Isles, The War of the Red Diamond, The Five Year War, The Arnesian War, The War of the Blue Divide, The War of the Bend’r-mahk, The War of Betony, and on, and on, and on.

All of that does not even include the fact that, every once in a while, time itself seems to have a stroke and the Dragon breaks... and sometimes stays broken for a thousand years! What we have going on in the Fourth Era is just a logical continuation of what has come before.

QUOTE(SubRosa @ Apr 5 2012, 11:30 AM)

This is why I say Bethesda has no respect for the lore it creates.

I couldn't agree more!

WARNING: RANT INCOMING -

That is not to say that I agree with everything done to the lore in the wake of Skyrim. My biggest problem is that the writers have taken a very significant chunk of the established history of Tamriel and changed it in order to accommodate the return of the dragons. Throughout Oblivion (and, to a lesser extent, throughout Morrowind) we are told that the Septims possess the dragon blood, which allows them to wear the Amulet of Kings, which keeps the dragonfires burning in the Temple of the One, which keeps the doors of Oblivion shut and all mortals safe from the hordes of daedra lurking beyond. We are told that the Amulet (and the blood) were gifts from Akatosh to Alessia and that, ‘so long as Alessia’s generations were true to the dragon blood, Akatosh would endeavor to seal tight the Gates of Oblivion.‘

NOWHERE in the lore does it say that Alessia then picked up a sword and proceeded to use her dragon blood to shout dragons out of the sky! Was that something that Akatosh forgot to mention when he was handing the Amulet over? Given the fact that every depiction of Akatosh we have ever been given identifies him as a dragon, one can see how a small detail like that would slip his mind. What really drives me crazy is that the only explanation we are ever given is from a guard at the Western Watch Tower:

QUOTE

Guard 1: I don’t remember Tiber Septim facing any dragons.

Guard 2 (in best Arnold Schwarzenegger voice): That’s because there weren’t any dragons then, idiot. They’re just appearing now for the first time in... forever.

Now I would probably accept it if they had told me that Red Mountain’s eruption and the subsequent destruction of Morrowind resulted in yet another Dragon Break, and that this Dragon Break awakened Alduin and resulted in the shifting of the role of the dragonborn from protector to slayer. That at least makes sense (insofar as the Elder Scrolls universe is concerned). They could have come up with a million reasons to explain the rise of a new dragonborn. You can't call something 'canon' and then remake it on a whim. As it stands now everything surrounding the dragonborn rings false because it doesn’t match with what came before. That isn’t a mistake, that’s just flat out lazy!

And in my version Cyrodiil lives on as it does in Lothran´s game. No wars, no gates, no trouble. Everyone just explore and raid caves

And thereby hangs Bethesda's problem. What the player does becomes canon, and the TES series is a success because they made it so open. So the lore has to constantly accommodate multiple incompatible situations, because even for one user, their characters leave the world in multiple states.

But they don't want to create a whole scenario, and new lore, for each game they bring out. Building on the existing makes it all richer, but increases the difficulty of incorporating the player's actions. Maybe they need to eliminate the player for TES:VI?

Although I'm there for the open world, I don't have a problem with a Main Quest. I would be perfectly happy to have the option of telling the game that my character is not cut out for a Main Quest and allowing the game to use an 'NPC' to complete the quest so that it happens around her - but still happens. I think that would be a cool option for future games - you could do the MQ, ignore the MQ, or decide to let the game have the MQ happen around you. I long ago outgrew playing th only 'Chosen' prophetic slob who could save the world.

In fact, having heroes complete the MQ while my character's role is somewhere between sidekick and observer is exactly how we handle the Oblivion Crisis in Buffy's fanfic.

Good point about the MQ. Oblivion is the one example where the hero of the MQ isn't the player, it's Martin.

If only they'd found a way to do that with all the other quest lines in the game. Arquen taking over as Listener in the DB line, Raminus becoming Archmage, Modryn as FG Guilmaster etc. The TG isn't too much of a problem, as the ending changes the whole of history anyway, which can include hiding the player's participation.

Then they'd have canonical plots for each of them and the player would just be a facilitator.

And although the Arcane University is there, the Mage's Guild has been disbanded...

Ahh. I read this bit just now. This is going to be the basis of a future RP I've been thinking of. I'm going to make a mage who come to Skyrim (a Gandalfy Mage) because his attempts to revive the Mage's Guild in Cyrodiil have been met with red tape.

And although the Arcane University is there, the Mage's Guild has been disbanded...

Disbanded isn't quite the case. It split into two. The former would have left no replacement guild, so it might have been easier to re-construct.

One assumes the College of Whispers and the Synod have differences it might be hard to reconcile. I'm currently working on trying to create a post-MQ quest that explains that separation, probably based around whether to pursue the Necromancers after Mannimarco is gone.

The Mages Guild had a teaching arm, and an "action" arm at each Guildhall (in theory according to "The Origin of the Mages Guild") with a Master of the Incunabula, and a Master at Arms in change respectively. I can see those roles becoming separated into the College and Synod over the Necromancer issue. Raminus, Tar-meena, Bothiel, Julienne Fanis are all the classic academics who'd stay at the Arcane University and form the College. Some of the chapter heads, like Carahil, Teekeeus, maybe Dagail would support the Synod, and I suspect some of the others at the University would too. Skingrad would probably be all-College, except for Erthor. Bruma, if reconstructed, would be pro-Synod! Cheydinhal, while anti-Necromancer, would have had enough of dealing with them and probably go College, as might Bravil.

By the time of Skyrim, each part would have adopted some of the functions of the other, as the College needs to protect itself, and the Synod needs to train its recruits. Because they're more self-sufficient, they don't need each other any more. I haven't played Skyrim, so I don't really know whether the specializations of the Guildhalls have influenced the College/Synod ones. Anyhow, there were chapters in other provinces that would have contributed.

I think that would be a cool option for future games - you could do the MQ, ignore the MQ, or decide to let the game have the MQ happen around you. I long ago outgrew playing th only 'Chosen' prophetic slob who could save the world.

I vote for Acadian as Beth´s next lead developer!

I hate The Chosen One thingy. It´s been done to death so many times I wanna punch someone in the face whenever I hear it. Having the option of having the MQ happen around you would be a great idea

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It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.Question everything

Disbanded isn't quite the case. It split into two. The former would have left no replacement guild, so it might have been easier to re-construct.

One assumes the College of Whispers and the Synod have differences it might be hard to reconcile. I'm currently working on trying to create a post-MQ quest that explains that separation, probably based around whether to pursue the Necromancers after Mannimarco is gone.

The Mages Guild had a teaching arm, and an "action" arm at each Guildhall (in theory according to "The Origin of the Mages Guild") with a Master of the Incunabula, and a Master at Arms in change respectively. I can see those roles becoming separated into the College and Synod over the Necromancer issue. Raminus, Tar-meena, Bothiel, Julienne Fanis are all the classic academics who'd stay at the Arcane University and form the College. Some of the chapter heads, like Carahil, Teekeeus, maybe Dagail would support the Synod, and I suspect some of the others at the University would too. Skingrad would probably be all-College, except for Erthor. Bruma, if reconstructed, would be pro-Synod! Cheydinhal, while anti-Necromancer, would have had enough of dealing with them and probably go College, as might Bravil.

By the time of Skyrim, each part would have adopted some of the functions of the other, as the College needs to protect itself, and the Synod needs to train its recruits. Because they're more self-sufficient, they don't need each other any more. I haven't played Skyrim, so I don't really know whether the specializations of the Guildhalls have influenced the College/Synod ones. Anyhow, there were chapters in other provinces that would have contributed.

Wow. Hey thanks! So the Mage's Guild in Cyrodiil splinters, is what you're saying. Man, my head's about to explode at all this new info (new to me).